# The tourist whose car Bill Gates fixed

- Teacher: Ajahn Brahm
- Type: Story
- URL: https://beingmindfulstories.com/stories/brahm-bill-gates-broke-down-california
- Themes: generosity, anonymity, gratitude, humour
- Life situations: helping strangers, famous people unnoticed

## Synopsis (editorial summary)

Remote northern California: a tourist's car fails with no mobile coverage; a farmer stops and fixes it. Later the tourist learns the farmer was Bill Gates travelling alone — gratitude pays the farm debts.

## The story, as told by Ajahn Brahm (verbatim captions)

tourist in the north of California who broke down. Not in uh busy traffic, sorry. This was breaking down in some of the more remote parts of northern California. And he couldn't fix his car. And then when he managed to get uh he tried everything but couldn't fix it. There's no mobile coverage. He had a mobile phone there. He was quite tech savvy the the driver of the car, but he couldn't fix his car. And a farmer came by and the farmer fixed his car for him. A simple thing because farmers have to know that. Because there's no one else to fix the car for the farmers. So the farmer fixed his car. They shook and they left. Thank you very much, said the driver. And it was just a few few weeks later that the farmer he had a letter from his bank saying that all the debts for his farm had been paid off. And for his equipment and a quite a large sum of money had been deposited to his credit in the bank. Because the the driver of that car who broken down was apparently Bill Gates

## Teaching point

Help given without a name can still rewrite someone's ledger.

## Reflection (in the spirit of Ajahn Brahm's talk)

A farmer stopped on a lonely road to fix a stranger's broken-down car. Weeks later his farm debts were paid off: the driver, so the story goes, was Bill Gates. Ajahn Brahm teases that the next stranded driver might be Gina Rinehart. Help anyway, not for reward. Kindness given freely has a way of coming back.

## Source

- [Importance of Pausing and Reflecting | Ajahn Brahm | 31 December 2021](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yifAjwBk1aA) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 42:18 to 43:42: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yifAjwBk1aA&t=2538s

Other tellings of this story:

- [Meditation, Kindness and Energy | Ajahn Brahm | 12 May 2023](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MgnroF0hQI) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 58:04 to 59:37: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MgnroF0hQI&t=3484s